I had asked Charlotte for a more detailed description of what she does with her brilliant new idea of a Wall Zoo to use
- as a bail out move
- to start the year (this could be powerful especially with younger kids to start a year)
- anytime
Here is the link to Charlotte’s first article on the Wall Zoo:
https://benslavic.com/blog/2013/01/26/wall-zoo/
Here is Charlotte’s current expanded description of the Wall Zoo:
The Wall Zoo was actually a bail out move, as I had forgotten the reading material at home…I gave the kids white paper and asked them to fold it in half. Then they should draw their animal on there. Ours ended up fairly small (about three inches usually) so maybe some preprinted boxes would be better. Then I asked each student which animal he or she wanted to draw. If it was in the L1 we translated together. I wrote all the names on the board and circled lightly. As we’re introducing will-future, I also asked “who will draw the fox?”, etc.
Then it was on to drawing. I helped students who felt they had serious trouble drawing by giving them some tips on the blackboard. That worked very well for us. Also, one of our students is called the “animal explorer” and he ALWAYS carries his favorite book, an animal encyclopedia, so we used that for reference, too. (This was great for him, as he a poor and scrawny kid whose mom forbids him to read at night because of the energy costs. In our classroom, he is the go-to expert on animals. I’ve never seen more authority among students.) Fast students drew two animals. I also allowed for doubles in the second round.
Then, as the students were finishing, they should write the name of the animal underneath in capital letters and cut it out with the name as the base. That also worked very well. I put the animals on the wall with blue tack. My class is not too big (26 students) so we just huddle up in front of the zoo for PQA. There has been some trouble with students touching/kicking the backs of chairs, etc. due to the lack of space, I should admit.
Here’s a selection of questions/commands that I used:
1. Point to this animal: F-R-O-G (they’re beginners, so they usually need about three letters till they get it) 2. Does a penguin eat fish or hamsters? 3. What is next to the giraffe? 4. How many big cats (lions, tigers, leopards, cheetahs, pumas – uhm, yes, we had them all) are there? 5. Does a parrot have feathers/a tail? 6. Does a giraffe live in Europe? 7. Do cockroaches live in the sea or on the land? 8. Does Sarah like cockroaches or rabbits?
Students’ favorite:
How many legs do four penguins, three fish and one polar bear have? (we did that up and down)
The students haven’t grown tired of it. Now we did a cloze text with a new animal for the zoo, which worked like this:
[A] finds a [animal A] in the park. He/she goes to the zoo. At the zoo there is [B]. [A] says to [B]: “Put the [animal A] with the [animal B]. [B] says: “No, the [animal B] will eat the [animal A]!”
You get the idea, until in the end, [B] takes the idea. You can’t believe how proud the kids were of their stories of R2-D2 finding a wookie for the zoo, or stereotypically, a girl who finds a unicorn and wants to put it with the pegasus… Two students wanted to act out their story on Monday with stuffed toys. Needless to say, I’m proud of them, too. Also, I learned a lot myself. I had to look up the names of several rarer animals and I had no clue that hedgehogs eat mice. My students loved to teach me!